Die Hard
by xxSpinner's Endxx
Summary: The Dark Lord fell fifty years prior, and most have lived in perfect contentment. The ministry, however, has gone corrupt from the outside in, and its influence at Hogwarts is more than just a little. Ellie Wells and Aidan Smith both find their way out...
1. Chapter 1

A/N: So, I added divisions between the flashbacks. I took out a few of the 'lies', but I kept them. They're there for emphasis. xP

* * *

The moon cast an unearthly glow over the wheat fields, sending their golden hue to shift to a faint silver between the pure light and light dew. The girl with the velvet witches' hat stood amongst the plants, hidden from view by their height and how thick they were; not that she was tall herself. Even with the height of her peaked hat, she couldn't see above the corn rows which bordered where she stood.

Her feet stepped conscientiously, carefully, deliberately, through the wheat. The tall shoots rustled against each other with her soft disturbance, and finally she was free from their grasp. Out in the walkway between the two fields she stood, staring ahead at the dirt, a path to no where. How depressingly it seemed all paths led to no where, and when you thought about it, everywhere was no where, and no where was everywhere. There was nothing to differentiate between.

It was her own world she had run away from, her own world she no longer wanted to be a part of. Her ignorance had sheltered her from the truth, but with age came her ability to look beneath the surface. She looked beneath the table cloth, under the table, and it was a nasty sight. Everything she had ever loved was a mask; a mere facade covering the ugly ambitions. Everyone lied, and no one lived a truth. Living was a lie amongst her own, or that was what it had become.

* * *

_There are ways to hide the trace. _That was what he had told her. So long ago on the edge of the Forbidden Forest, his Gryffindor scarf wrapped tight about his neck as if he were perpetually cold. This day wasn't all too frigid for late January, and though no student went without their scarves, most were hung loosely about their necks. She had looked down at that, thinking too deeply, still trying to argue with herself that he was wrong, that she hadn't been thinking, that everything was just alright. Deep down, she knew, it was all a lie. A lie she had been telling herself for much too long.

So she had settled for staring at the thin green and silver stripe that adorned the end of the sleeve of her sweater, then to her green gloves. "Even if I could get away from here, I'd never figure it out. Not without magic, and then it would be too late," she countered, unable to keep a sneer from her voice. A sneer which was derived from the infamous Slytherin influence. Why was she even_speaking_ to this bloody Gryffindor? Blood traitor on top of it all.

"So don't use magic. Not until you are sure you're safe. Are we doing this or not?" he asked, and she saw the look in his eye. The daring edge which surprised her, though she supposed it shouldn't have. Gryffindors had their bravery. They were still, well, _good._"Ellie?"

She looked up, her gaze meeting his, hardened and steely. "Of course we are. The mudblood loving Gryffie isn't afraid to break some rules, then?" Ellie mocked, the derogatory term slipping from her lips as easily as a breath of air, and it nauseated her.

"Don't say that," he hissed at her, his eyes flashing threateningly. "I'd sell you out before you even had a chance to take a breath if I ever heard it from your mouth again."

"Likewise, I'm sure," she responded bitterly. "Don't threaten a Slytherin, Aidan, we're better at it." Her one eyebrow was arched, and her arms were crossed over her chest. The adrenaline was pounding through her legs, making them shake. It was infinitesimal enough; hopefully he wouldn't see.

"Sorry, did I offend you?" he asked, his voice thick with sarcasm. He brushed his dark hair away from his eyes, his dark gray eyes which made his lineage evident. It was Malfoy that was there, wasn't it? In every other aspect, however, he seemed to fall into his distant relatives, the Blacks. With a few exceptions, which were derived from his muggle father. She wanted to apologize for a moment, relapse into her childhood ways. But that was no longer a part of her nature any more than crying to her mother or asking for parental advice.

"Forget it," she replied, but her voice was a little too forceful, and it seemed a little too strangled. Aidan seemed to pick up on it, instantly; not because it was in his nature, but because it was her. His gaze at her softened for an instant as she looked away, but the second she turned back it reverted to how it was before. Hard and cold.

"We need a plan," was all he said.

"I'm good at those."

"I know."

* * *

_Not good enough, evidently_, she thought to herself bitterly, struggling to bring herself back to the here and now. Her eyes darkened. She had a goal, and she needn't forget that. There were people for her to find.

Oh, but where; the hopeless question which reverberated through her head, causing her to become dizzy and fueling her confusion like when lighter fluid meets a match. So she had a place to go, but didn't know where to go, and it sent her forward, through the woods. Deep in the dark of a dense thicket, she pulled the hat from her head, shaking out her auburn hair, and casting it aside. Her long dark cloak had been thrown away already...before she left. Before she had changed into muggle attire and left her world for what might have been for good.

* * *

Eyelids blinked open, lifting the wall which separated pupil and iris from the outside world. It was all too bright at first, light blue sky, minimal clouds, shining sun. It was early spring, but uncharacteristically warm, and the humid air caught in her throat, serving to be very much strangling. Ellie sat up and sighed, it proved to be much better, so much easier to breathe. It was a curb on the side of the road on which she sat, where she had fallen asleep the night previously. In front of her an aged pickup truck rattled past, rusty and looking every bit the death trap it probably was.

Though there was, in fact, a cement curb, the road was not paved, and every car which rolled past sent up a choking cloud of dust. With every one, the young witch began to find she utterly abhorred motor vehicles.

"I said, are you a'ight?" she heard the unfamiliar but unmistakable Western sort of American accent from behind her. It was not all too unkind, but she had to think again. Why, oh why, did the portkey have to lead to the middle of nowhere? To the middle of the _agricultural, empty __**U.S.A**_?!

"Oh, um, fine," she finally muttered, and was not so slow minded to think that arrogance would get her anywhere. She had found out otherwise all too many times.

"You're not from around her', are you?" the voice responded, and she was finally forced to turn around. It was a taller woman, and her face showed her age, though it was evident she did not want it to. It was forced into non-expression from too many Botox injections, something Ellie was only aware of from the jokes the other Hogwarts students made about it. The muggles and their silly anti-aging serums...

Though it was not at all what she expected. Her accent fit, but the way she looked seemed more cheap Beverly Hills. Her hair was very large, and there was no other real description for it. Her face was adorned with make up- not badly applied, merely too much. It gave her a fake look to her, too plastic, too materialistic. Her expression beneath it, however, is what swayed Ellie. Her clothing was Versace, made apparent to the witch only because the designer was emblazoned across the woman's chest. It was a simple t-shirt, jeans, and cow boots. All of which were new and clean looking.

"No," Ellie responded, her nerve finding its way back into her mind. For that she was greatful, "I'm not." Her chin was taken gently in the woman's thumb and forefinger, and it brought about an overwhelming intake of her already strong perfume. _God damn_, she thought to herself, _Moderation, woman, moderation. _

"Do you need a place to stay?" she asked, her voice still kind, and Ellie was put off. Trusting was not something that came easily to her, but she had to admit, a nice rest could be nice. _Stupid, stupid, Ellie_, her mind taunted, _Everyone is only out for themselves. Think of what a story it would make. She 'takes you in'. Then calls the authorities, and tells her friends she saved you from yourself. _

"No, I just wandered a bit, and...," she let her voice drift off, and even she had to admit it was a lame lie. It was shocking, as she usually was a pretty smooth and convincing liar. The woman's eyebrows went up.

"I'm sorry," she said, "I must've been so rude. I'm Karen. Very well known 'round here, and I wouldn't mind at all if you stopped by my home, had a cup of tea. I doubt you wandered all the way from England, that's righ', isn't it? But I'm not asking questions. Just wondering if you simply need a place to stay."

"Yes, England is correct. And my name is Ellie Wells," she responded, no need to lie about her name.

"That's_fabulous_," she responded, walking and motioning for Ellie to follow. "My family had some friends in England. Very important figures, I s'pose. Used to visit them as a girl. Beautiful country."

"Some parts," Ellie agreed, but not without compensation. Oh hell, what did she get herself into? What a conundrum. And it didn't seem like this Karen would take 'No' very easily.

* * *

A/N: So review, please. I perpetually give up writing fanfiction when I don't get reviews, but I would really like to continue this one. 


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: So here's the next piece. Read; constructive criticism is always welcome. _  
_

_"Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality."_

-Edgar Allan Poe.

* * *

It came as a shock, though she supposed it shouldn't have, when the woman had stopped her and they took a car to her house. It was, Ellie supposed, for she was not experienced in the matter, a very fancy car. A Rolls Royce, actually. Silver and flashy, subtle in no way. It was comfortable enough, and the Slytherin found the _inside _of the car much more enjoyable than the outside.

"If you don' mind my askin', what brings you way out here?" The question caused Ellie to cringe. _I do mind very much, actually, _she thought sourly to herself, but her facade was kept carefully intact.

"Foreign exchange student program," she began. They had those, right? "Some friends and I went walking around last night and I got lost."

"I know how it is. I remember those days," she responded, looking wistful. Most undoubtedly thinking back to the days where she wandered around during a time when her senses were dulled and woke up in a strange place, unable to remember any way of getting there. Oh, what a joy it was to reminisce. Those were the days.

Ellie nodded. _Whatever you say, woman_, she thought to herself, trying to prevent herself from snorting at the implication.

"I hope I'm not causing any harm. No one will be upset that you're coming to my house?" Karen inquired, her eyebrows furrowed together in a look of concern. _Fake_, a voice hissed from the back of Ellie's mind. Oh yes, how she knew those fake looks...

"No, no one," Ellie responded, smiling something polite and charming, but it was not felt, and if one were to look directly at her, it could be seen in her eyes. Ignorance, though, would prevent this, as it was one of the greatest flaws of humanity; the dire inability to read deeper than what appeared.

"Here we are," she replied after a pause that might have been a minute or an hour, as the witch in the passenger seat had retreated to the security of her thoughts and musings. Only half held and thought through, they were, as she was too tired and forlorn to bother with finishing any of them.

Her eyes glanced up and she was greeted with the sight of a white house, pillars in front, a painted wooden porch with exquisite lamps hanging down. Ones which would surely bring this edifice to life at night, summoning ghostly shadows to dance just off the porch, but casting the house in a flickering light. The windows were numerous, and the glass was wavy in its age, framed by glossy black wood. The only exception to the white and black was the large, blood red door.

* * *

Aidan shoved his hands into his jeans pockets, pacing the cell. There had to be a way out. There was _always_ a way out... Before they came back.

"Damn it," he hissed, his voice coming out barely above a whisper, but the aggression and panic and urgency behind it sent it to reverberate through the iron bars and stone walls. It was condemnation at its highest, his position. There was no possible way it could be worse. That is, unless they found some more sadistic method of torture, but he fully planned on either escaping or killing himself before that happened.

Most preferably not the latter.

The bars were iron, and he was without his wand, and even if he had it, they were bound to be impervious to magic. There was a window in the corner, glass, but it was barred. Not to mention small, and he doubted greatly whether he would fit. There was a lock, a large padlock, rusty and cold and the epitome of his misery.

He paced across the floor, the wounds on his arms and legs closing up like they said they would. The only reason for healing him being so that they could put him through it all over again, and the mere thought sent his skin cold. The memory of the scent of his own blood was nauseating, and he kicked a shard of glass which was among the debris that cursed the floors. The voice in his ear, the binding to his chair, and it all sent his spine to tense and his body to involuntarily shudder.

It made him feel weak. Weakness had always been his greatest enemy, his closest foe, and at the moment it was breathing down his neck. It seemed to be taunting him, whispering snidely into his cheek, and there was no other possible way to piss him off more.

Once again his legs reached the opposite side of the cell, so small that it would easily send a claustrophobic into a heart attack, and he all but collapsed onto the wooden bench. The wooden bench which hung from the wall by chains; thick, black and rust chains which creaked with the weight, but were too strong to break. The dungeon smelled like urine and blood, ammonia and rust and salt all mingling amongst each other, burning throats and scratching at eyes. Aidan's head felt light, the front of his face cold, and his neck and windpipe became hot and itchy.

"Not going to save yourself the trouble and commit it?" the voice rung through the cell, and Aidan's cold gray eyes snapped open as he turned his head to look at the speaker. Before even resting eyes, he already abhorred her from the mocking tone and the all too blatant amusement. When he saw her, he despised her even more. Every fiber of his being was committed to thinking desperate, cold, violent thoughts, threatening her with his looks and imagining carrying out those threats...

"Commit what?" he asked monotonously as he brushed his hair from his eyes in a rather blasé way for the situation. What wasn't noticed was how badly the boy's hand was shaking, and how his skin lost its color. A sheet white in contrast to his usual porcelain shade. Both pale, but only one bordering on the chalky hue that accompanied death itself.

"Suicide, honeypie," she continued, still in that sickly sweet voice. Her black curls fell down in front of her shoulders as she crossed her arms above her head and leaned into the bars.

"There a reason you're here?"

"I'm to take you back to the Confession Room."

"I'm not leaving unless you kill me first," he responded despondently, his eyes drifting to the window. There had to be something he could do...

"I gave you a chance for suicide. Hell, you still have a little more time," she wheedled, and behind her cold eyes there was a spark of fear. The fear she would never let anyone see, because she would rather have power with expense than to have no power and be watched by the Ministry. She would rather watch someone die for no reason at all than to put herself in a position that might lead to that. And that she would rather have this boy commit suicide than to have to see him tortured incessantly for crimes he had not yet committed.

"I decline," he stated simply, and his jaw was clenched in defiance, a flash going through his eyes.

"In that case," she responded, giving in very grudgingly and obviously hoping he would have taken a piece of glass from the ground and followed her advice. Her wand was pulled from her pocket, pointed at him, and his legs seemed to go rigid, a voiceless Imperius command flitting through her mind, and Aidan's own brain too tired to resist.

The room was circular, stone, and the walls were adorned with tapestries depicting wizarding power. One wizard over another, causing the weaker to fall. _I won't fall_, he thought fleetingly to himself, and it was irrational that he should so choose to think it. It would not help his situation, and as far as he could tell, nothing would.

And so he was then seated in a hard wooden chair, bound by chains and his head held back by an invisible force. The force strained on his skin and pounded through his head, causing his eyes to hurt and it to become nearly unbearable to just hold his eyelids open. He did, however, and he watched as the gaunt, pale man strode forward, twirling a knife within his hand.

"So, are you ready to tell us where your partner is?"

"Why is it illegal to drop out of school?"

"It is a _crime_." Each word of the four was weighted, and the final most of all, as if it need not even be said, but at the same time it could not ever be said enough.

"Redundant answer."

"It is disrespect to the Ministry of Magic. Do you realize that? After all this government has done for you, everything it was built upon, you chose to disregard it all. The dark lord fell by the very hands that built this civilization to what it was!" The man roared, and he had to know what he said was a lie, from his age and his intelligence, he couldn't possibly fall for it. And yet, he swallowed what people said to him, one strip of falsehood after another, and already his own memories were being rewritten.

"I am pretty sure that was Harry Potter, sir."

"An old wives' tale. A story for young children who do not yet grasp the very meaning of the Ministry," the man replied nonchalantly, turning away. Years before it had been banned to teach in nursery schools, and the name itself was made taboo. All those who uttered it were tracked and brought back to this very room. None ever seemed to find their way out. "I will repeat myself. Where is the other perpetrator?"

"No idea. For some reason the portkey did not work properly. I ended up here. Do you think anyone is stupid enough to tell us where the thing would take us? And jeopardize themselves? You've mistaken them all for naivety. If not outright stupidity."

"You better come up with a better answer, or all those cuts that have begun healing so nicely will be torn open," he hissed, his hands pressed upon Aidan's arms, the yellowing nails digging into flesh as he leaned over him and put his face only a few inches from the boy's.

"_I don't have a better answer_," Aidan hissed back, only a infinitesimal flicker of fear flashing briefly through the back of his eyes.

The man pulled away, angrily and shaking, and then turned on his heel and toward the dark haired woman. "Take him away," he muttered, and left the room. A fleeting look of surprise crossed the woman's face, but she did not say anything. Quickly moving, she pulled out her wand and removed the chains from the chair, only to lead him back to his dungeon cell.

"You're lucky, kid."

* * *

The door was opened and the woman walked in, motioning for Ellie to follow. The girl complied, following directly behind and feeling only minimally awkward. Even though it was nominal, it was still a rather big deal for the girl who had never before in her life felt unease in a new situation.

"The maid already has tea made, if you just come right on in here and sit down, I can pour you some," Karen stated swiftly, glancing up and repeating the motion for Ellie to come over, but more quickly this time. Ellie moved closer, taking the exquisitely crafted china teacup she was handed, the steam drifting up and the aroma spicy and sweet. "Cream or sugar?" At the question Ellie shook her head no in response and then took a sip. Placing her glass on the counter she finally looked up.

"Okay, I lied," Ellie began, and it was bold, she knew, maybe even reckless, but there wasn't much this muggle could do to her. "I'm not here for any reason my parents are even aware of. I got into a bit of trouble, and I really need to get away from it. They would not understand, and I have received word they are actually glad I'm gone. It would taint the family name..." She finally looked up, her eyes hard and cold in relation to Karen's which held that 'poor dear' sort of implication. "I would understand completely if you wished me out of your house right now. In fact, it would probably be wise. I cannot think of anyone who would want to have to deal with me. But just so you know, I'm not a complete psycho. Not that my word would mean much."

"I know you lied," Karen responded, sighing as she put her tea down and leaned against her black marble counter. "But you're welcome to stay here as long as you need to. ..._If _ you help out a bit."

Ellie nodded, deciding it was fair; probably the kindest thing she could hope for. "Help with what? If you don't mind my asking."

"We run a boarding stable here. It was originally my husband's, and I used to want no part of it, but that was before he died. Then I found I couldn' quite sell it. Much less his horse. I'll take you out back later, you can meet the hands and they'll teach you what you need to know."

She nodded again, and swallowed, though she found it hard. For the first time in a very long time, she thought of Aidan. Oh dear god, where was he?

* * *

A/N: So, really, let me know what you think. Suggestions are always welcome as well. 


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